Islamist Wave 2014 - News & Discussion

10 posts

Schmeisser

Word is that 1700 Shia soldiers have already been summarily executed and so far 2500 Sunni Maliki soldiers have received a pardon from Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Fitz
Mosul Seized: Jihadis Loot $429m from City's Central Bank to Make Isis World's Richest Terror Force

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Civilian children stand next to a burnt vehicle during clashes between Iraqi security forces and al Qaeda-linked Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) in the northern Iraq city of Mosul.Reuters

The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (Isis) has become the richest terror group ever after looting 500 billion Iraqi dinars - the equivalent of $429m (£256m) - from Mosul's central bank, according to the regional governor.

Nineveh governor Atheel al-Nujaifi confirmed Kurdish televison reports that Isis militants had stolen millions from numerous banks across Mosul. A large quantity of gold bullion is also believed to have been stolen.

Following the siege of the country's second city, the bounty collected by the group has left it richer than al-Qaeda itself and as wealthy as small nations such as Tonga, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands and the Falkland Islands.

Richest Terror Factions in the World (as of 2011) ​
1) Taliban - $70m - $400m​
2) Hezbollah $200m - $500m ($120m from Iran)​
3) Farc - $80m - $350m​
4) Hamas - $70m​
5) Al-Shabaab - $70m - 100m​
Source: Money Jihad​

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The financial assets that Isis now possess are likely to worsen the Iraqi governement's struggle to defeat the insurgency, which is aimed at creating an Islamic state across the Syrian-Iraqi border.

The Islamist militants took control of Mosul after hundreds of its fighters overwhelmed government military forces in a lightning attack on Monday, forcing up to 500,000 people to flee the city and Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki to call a national state of emergency.

The militants freed up to 1,000 inmates from Mosul's central prison, according to senior police officials. They are also in control of Mosul airport and local television stations.

They also seized considerable amounts of US-supplied military hardware. Photos have already emerged of Isis parading captured Humvees in neighbouring Syria where they are also waging war against President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

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US-supplied humvees captured by Islamic insurgents in the battle for MosulTwitter / @jenanmoussa

In a televised news conference, Maliki said "Iraq is undergoing a difficult stage" and urged the public and government to unite "to confront this vicious attack, which will spare no Iraqi."

The US State Department has released a statement saying that it is "deeply concerned" by the Islamist militants' siege of Mosul.

"The situation remains extremely serious. Senior U.S. officials in both Washington and Baghdad are tracking events closely in coordination with the Government of Iraq," the statement read.

"The United States stands with the Iraqi people," it continued.

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Isis captured the city Falluja, 40 miles west of Baghdad, in January and currently controls large swathes of northern Iraq.

The Iraqi government has launched a number of failed assaults on the city leaving hopes of retaking Mosul slim.

An Iraqi army officer told the Independent: "We can't beat them."

"They're trained in street fighting and we're not. We need a whole army to drive them out of Mosul.

They're like ghosts; they appear to hit and disappear within seconds."
Fitz
Former KGB liaison heading the Iraqi Insurgency ​
[​IMG] Part of channel(s): Iraq (current event)

Contrary to what we are being led to believe by the court jesters of Press TV, the Iraqi insurgents have a strong presence of Baathists, fiercely committed to the ideals of secularism, amongst their ranks. The most prominent amongst these Baathists is Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, for many years Saddam Hussein's right hand man. As the Head of the Revolutionary Command Council of the Baathist regime, al-Douri coordinated joint operations with the secret service of the Soviet Union, and he is also a good friend of Yevgeni Primakov. To those suffering from senilia or those too young to know, I would like to point out that the Baghdad of the seventies was the mother of all Asian hubs for the secret services of the Warsaw Pact. Furthermore, thousands of East Germans, Russians, and Yugoslavs lived and worked in Iraq. It is essential to the well-being not only of the Iraqi people but of the whole Arabic region that Iraq be restored to its former glory.

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Saddam Hussein’s former army fighting its way back?

By Ali Younes

The daughter of the late Iraqi president Saddam Hussien, Raghad, said yesterday that she is
“very happy for the victories of “uncle Ezzat” and the fighters of my father “ a reference to the stunning routing of the Iraqi army at the hands of awhat appears to be a coalition of Islamic fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ISIS, and former Iraqi army soldiers loyal to the former vice president of Iraq Ezzat Ibrahim al Douri, ( also Izzat Ibrahim al Duri) and tribal fighters from the disenfranchised northern Sunni tribes.

Al Douri was never captured by the US occupation forces when they invaded Iraq in 2003.

Ms. Hussein's comments were recorded in a telephone interview from the Jordanian capital Amman with Pan-Arab newspaper Al Quds-Al Arabi. She also said that she follows the news from inside Iraq by the minute and she is happy because the fighters loyal to her father and hisvice president were able to “ liberate” Iraqi cities from the central government of Baghdad. The current Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki is seen by many Iraqis as sectarian and have alienated the Sunni population of Iraq ever since he came to power eight years ago.

In a stunning turn of events in the past 3 days, tens of thousands of soldiers and entire military
units of the Iraqi army practically melted away , abandoned their heavy weapons and either sundered or fled to Baghdad. It was seen as a humiliating defeat to al Maliki who is now under fire from all sides including his American backers.

Source: Arab Daily News
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Fitz

what's ur take on this? is this is an ISIS-led insurgency or no?

Angocachi Schmeisser @anyone who'd know

Angocachi
They're trying not to get bombed by the United States or invaded by Iran.

Everything Sunni insurgency related currently happening in Iraq is ISIS. It's their men and their flag flying everywhere.

ISIS would like to force America to launch airstrikes and for Iran to send in a heavy ground force. This will see them swollen with recruits and funds beyond what any Jihadist group has ever known.
Angocachi
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Jihadi Recruitment in Riyadh Revives Saudi Arabia's Greatest Fear



The al-Qaeda breakaway group that has captured Iraq’s biggest northern city is on a recruitment drive in Saudi Arabia.

The evidence showed up last month in Riyadh, where drivers woke up to find leaflets stuffed into the handles of their car doors and in their windshields. They were promoting the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, which has grabbed the world’s attention by seizing parts of northern Iraq. The militant group is also using social media, such as Twitter and YouTube, to recruit young Saudi men.

Already at war with the governments of Iraq and Syria, ISIL also poses a potential threat to the Al Saud family’s rule over the world’s biggest oil exporter. Saudi authorities gained the upper hand in their battle with al-Qaeda, which targeted the kingdom a decade ago, yet analysts said the latest generation of militants may be harder to crush.

ISIL, known as Da’esh in Arabic, has “territorial ambitions and is far more difficult to deal with than al-Qaeda,” Mustafa Alani, an analyst at the Geneva-based Gulf Research Center, said in a telephone interview. “These people are able to hold ground, they have army-like units, and they conduct terrorist attacks.”
Stability in Saudi Arabia under the Al Saud has been essential for global oil markets.
When supplies from Libya and sanction-hit Iran were disrupted after 2011, the kingdom increased output to meet demand. It produced 9.67 million barrels of oil a day in May, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Oil Industry


Oil futures have been rattled by the instability in Iraq. West Texas Intermediate climbed for a fourth day and Brent crude gained on concern that the escalating violence threatens to disrupt supplies from OPEC’s second-largest producer. WTI futures advanced as much as 0.6 percent in New York after capping a 4.1 percent weekly gain on June 13.

In the past, the Saudi oil industry was an al-Qaeda target. The group’s followers, including Saudi veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq who returned to the kingdom, attacked Abqaiq, the world’s largest oil processing plant in the Eastern Province, with car bombs in 2006.

There are concerns that conflicts in Syria and Iraq will play a similar role to those earlier wars, pulling fighters from different Arab and European countries.

Al-Qaeda’s offshoots such as ISIL are increasingly taking the initiative in the war against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In Iraq, they control a swathe of territory, and Saudi authorities are on guard against local cells. Saudi Arabia conducted large military exercises along its northern border in April, in a show of force against possible threats.

‘Terrorism Threat’


In May, the Interior Ministry said it arrested 62 militants who were planning attacks against domestic and foreign targets in the kingdom. Major General Mansour al-Turki, the ministry’s spokesman, told Al Arabiya that police are still looking for another 44 members. Some of the suspects had ties with ISIL in Syria and with al-Qaeda’s splinter group in Yemen.

“We recognize that all terrorist-related groups are a threat, including ISIL,” al-Turki said in an interview yesterday. “But our security forces are very well prepared to handle any terrorism threat.”

The leaflets showed up on cars on back streets in two residential neighborhoods in Riyadh in May, according to a Saudi security official, who asked not to be identified because police are still investigating the incident. It’s also unclear if those responsible had direct contact with ISIL or were acting on their own, the official said.

‘Fake Beard’


In the leaflets, the group warned against Muslims with “fake beards,” or those who pretend to be followers of Islam but are really its enemy, according to copies posted on Twitter by residents of the capital.

Such language has often been used by jihadi groups to criticize the Saudi monarchy, which enforces Islamic law at home and yet has also cultivated an alliance with the U.S., seen as enemies by most Islamists.

The kingdom is home to Mecca’s Grand Mosque, Islam’s holiest shrine, which was temporarily seized by militants in 1979. Juhayman al-Otaybi, who led the takeover of the mosque, had accused the ruling Al Saud family of being un-Islamic and called for them to stop selling oil to western powers.

“The Saudi leadership is seen by many extremist groups, even those groups that Saudis financially support, as corrupt,” said Paul Sullivan, a Middle East specialist at Georgetown University in Washington.

Saudi Arabia is backing the mainly Sunni rebels fighting Assad in Syria, though there is no evidence that authorities are funding ISIL.

Spray Paint


ISIL’s printed literature also accused Western nations of using the war on “terror” to assault the Muslim world, a message that may ring true with some Saudis, who are suspicious of the U.S. role in the Middle East.

In the western Saudi city of Taif, a video posted on Youtube showed militant slogans spray-painted on government buildings.

Al-Turki said police monitor young Saudis who engage in activities such as spraying graffiti, or filming themselves carrying the banners of radical groups, “in response to requests posted on terrorism-related accounts” on social media. He said several are being questioned by authorities.

ISIL is “expanding its strategic campaign to the kingdom,” Theodore Karasik, director of research at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis in Dubai, said in a phone interview. “ISIL is using simple information operations to get their message out.”

Potential Audience


There’s a potential audience of sympathizers in Saudi Arabia. Earlier this year, a group of veiled Saudi women posted a video on YouTube calling upon ISIL’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, to topple Al Saud because of “their un-Islamic and unjust reign.” The authenticity of the video couldn’t be independently verified.

The language in the leaflet, and on the video, is reminiscent of Osama Bin Laden, who also urged the overthrow of the Saudi rulers. By taking control of a swathe of territory across northern Iraq and Syria, Al-Baghdadi’s fighters have achieved gains that al-Qaeda never managed. The U.S. has dispatched an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf as President
Barack Obama weighs options to halt the group’s advance in Iraq,
“Its members are more brutal in their killings,” Abdulsalam Mohammed, head of the Abaad Studies and Research Center in Sana’a and a specialist in Islamic movements, said in a phone interview. “They have a greater tendency to exploit and promote sectarian division. But they’re also willing to target Sunni groups.”

http://www.businessweek.com/news/20...ive-in-riyadh-revives-biggest-saudi-threat#p2
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Angocachi
US steps up military preparations over Iraq


US sends more ships to Gulf and considers drone strikes in Iraq as politicians hint they may cooperate with Iran.


The US secretary of state has said his country is considering drone strikes in Iraq and is open to cooperation with Iran, as more US ships sailed towards the Gulf to deal with lightning advances by Sunni fighters.

John Kerry on Monday said drone strikes were "not the whole answer" to the takeover of large parts of northern Iraq by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in the north of Iraq. However, he said that they could be "one of the options that are important".

"When you have people murdering, assassinating in these mass massacres , you have to stop that. And you do what you need to do if you need to try to stop it from the air or otherwise."

When asked if the US was willing to work with Iran to save Baghdad's government, Kerry said his country would "not rule out anything that would be constructive".
"Let’s see what Iran might or might not be willing to do before we start making any pronouncements," he said in the interview with Yahoo news.
Kerry's comments came as Chuck Hagel, the US defence secretary, ordered the amphibious transport, the USS Mesa Verde, to the Gulf.
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US ​


The Mesa Verde can carry up to 800 US Marines, their equipment and aircraft such as the Osprey helicopter / plane hybrid and Sea Knight helicopters.

John Kirby, the Pentagon's spokesman, said the Mesa Verde had already joined up with the carrier strike group led by the aircraft carrier, the USS George HW Bush.
Al Jazeera's James Bays, reporting from New York, said the Iraq crisis was expected to be discussed with Iran on the sidelines of the nuclear talks in Vienna on Monday.
"The Iranian foreign minister will be there, as well as the US deputy secretary of state," said Bays. "Iran and the US are deeply concerned about Iraq."

Rebels make more gains

On Monday, ISIL fighters captured Tal Afar, a strategic city along the highway to Syria, moving closer to their goal of linking areas under their control on both sides of the border.

A resident in Tal Afar, 420km northwest of Iraqi capital, Baghdad, said over the telephone that the rebels in pick-up trucks mounted with machine guns and flying black ISIL banners were roaming the streets, as gunfire rang out.

Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel-Hamid reporting from the northern town of Khazer said Tal Afar represented one of the last strongholds for the Baghdad government.
The fall of Tal Afar comes a week after rebels captured Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, and Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit in a lightening offensive.

aljazeera.com

Iran official: 'Tehran willing to work with US over Iraq crisis'



Iran may be willing to cooperate with America over the ISIS uprising in Iraq, according to an Iranian official

Shia Muslim Iran is so alarmed by Sunni insurgent gains in Iraq that it may be willing to cooperate with Washington in helping Baghdad fight back, a senior Iranian official told Reuters.
The idea is being discussed internally among the Islamic Republic's leadership, the senior Iranian official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official had no word on whether the idea had been raised with any other party.
Officials say Iran will send its neighbour advisers and weaponry, although probably not troops, to help its ally Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki check what Tehran sees as a profound threat to regional stability, officials and analysts say.
Islamist militants have captured swathes of territory including the country's second biggest city Mosul.

Tehran is open to the possibility of working with the United States to support Baghdad, the senior official said.

"We can work with Americans to end the insurgency in the Middle East," the official said, referring to events in Iraq.

"We are very influential in Iraq, Syria and many other countries."

For many years, Iran has been aggrieved by what it sees as US efforts to marginalise it. Tehran wants to be recognised as a significant player in regional security.

Relations between Iran and Washington have improved modestly since the 2013 election of President Hassan Rouhani, who promised "constructive engagement" with the world.

And while Tehran and the United States pursue talks to resolve the Islamic state's decade-old nuclear standoff with the West, they also acknowledge some common threats, including the rise of al Qaeda-style militancy across the Middle East.

On Thursday, President Barack Obama said the United States was not ruling out air strikes to help Baghdad fight the insurgents, in what would be the first US armed intervention in Iraq since the end of the US-led war.

Rouhani on Thursday strongly condemned what he called violent acts by insurgent groups in the Middle East.

"Today, in our region, unfortunately, we are witnessing violence, killing, terror and displacement," Rouhani said.

"Iran will not tolerate the terror and violence ... we will fight against terrorism, factionalism and violence."

Asked on Thursday about Iranian comments, US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said: "Clearly, we've encouraged them in many cases to play a constructive role. But I don't have any other readouts or views from our end to portray here today."

Fearing Iraq's war could spill into Iran, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has urged the international community to back Maliki's administration "in its fight against terrorism".

Brigadier-General Mohammad Hejazi said Iran was ready to supply Iraq with "military equipment or consultations," the Tasnim news agency reported. "I do not think the deployment of Iranian troops would be necessary," he was quoted as adding.

The senior Iranian official said Iran was extremely worried about the advance of ISIS, also a major force in the war against Iran's close ally Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, carving out a swathe of Syria territory along the Iraqi border.

"The danger of extremist Sunni terrorist in Iraq and the region is increasing ... There have been several high-ranking security meetings since yesterday in Tehran," the official said.

"We are on alert and we also follow the developments in Iraq very closely."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...willing-to-work-with-US-over-Iraq-crisis.html
Angocachi
Jihadist expansion in Iraq puts Persian Gulf states in a tight spot

As Sunni jihadists have pushed from Syria deep into Iraq, making startling gains that are now threatening Baghdad, they are highlighting the increasingly uncomfortable position of Persian Gulf states that have backed Syria’s predominantly Sunni rebels.

Officially, Iraq’s southern neighbors, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, oppose groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which captured advanced weaponry caches and forced a dramatic retreat of government security forces across northern Iraq this week.

But citizens in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have quietly funneled vast sums of money to and joined the ranks of ISIS and other jihadist groups fighting Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria over the past two years, analysts and U.S. officials have said.

The Syrian conflict, which has pitted Sunni fighters against Syrian forces and Shiite militias backed by Iran, has now more tangibly than ever spilled across regional borders, setting off the most serious crisis in Iraq since the bloodiest periods of the U.S. occupation. As a result, the gulf-sponsored jihadists — who could threaten the very integrity of the Saudi and Kuwaiti governments — are suddenly on the gulf’s back doorstep.

“While Sunni governments don’t support ISIS,” their people do, said Andrew Tabler, an expert on Arab politics at the Washington Institute for Near East policy. “The funding for ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra and other jihadist organizations is coming from” gulf states.

Now those gulf states “are in an awkward position,” he said.

And yet gulf governments are hardly expected to come to Iraq’s aid. They have long harbored animosity toward Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a
Shiite who came to power during the war in Iraq and empowered the country’s Shiite majority at the expense of Sunnis, and whom many Sunni Arabs view as a pawn of Iran.

Although Saudi Arabia and its gulf allies may fear ISIS, “they have no particular interest in shoring up Maliki’s government,” said Shadi Hamid, a Middle East expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia has repeatedly refused to meet with Maliki, despite a long, shared border.

“The king has a personal attitude that this man is a puppet in the hand of the Iranians, and he dismissed him from his book a long time ago,” said Mustafa Alani, director of the National Security and Terrorism Studies Department at the Gulf Research Center.

Some — perhaps many — gulf citizens may even be cheering about the rise of the jihadists, believing them to be a positive force against Iran and its proxies in a divided Middle East, he said.

“This feeling is there,” Alani said, that ISIS may have “taught the Maliki government a lesson.”

Saudi Arabia remained silent Friday on the expanding crisis in Iraq, even as ISIS fighters advanced south toward Baghdad, and the United States pledged to send assistance to Maliki’s government. Kuwait’s defense ministry said it was “monitoring the situation and ready militarily to face any development internally or on the borders," the country’s Al-Seyassa newspaper reported.

Meanwhile, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, the country’s most powerful fighting force, also signaled its readiness to move into Iraq, deepening fears in gulf states that ISIS gains might also bring a more forceful Iranian presence to their national borders.

Hossein Salami, an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps general, said that his forces were “in full combat readiness” to join the fight in Iraq if necessary, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

Iraqi Shiite militants and Arab intelligence officials say that Iran has sent Revolutionary Guard forces to assist the Syrian and Iraqi governments in recent years. Iraqi Shiite fighters told The Washington Post last year that Iran was helping to organize and train Iraqi fighters to go to Syria and battle the Sunni-dominated rebels, including extremist jihadists such as ISIS.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Friday that the Islamic republic would not “tolerate” the violence that was unfolding across the border.

With both Iran and the Obama administration saying Friday that they were prepared to assist Iraq’s beleaguered government, the Iraq crisis could spur the formation of an unusual, if temporary, alliance. That would heighten gulf fears and could worsen Saudi Arabia’s relationship with Washington, some analysts said.

In the past year, Saudi Arabia has watched with dismay as the United States sought to disentangle itself from the Middle East and moved closer to forging a deal with Iran over its contentious nuclear program.

At the same time, a rising ISIS in Iraq is no doubt worrisome for gulf nations, no matter how much their governments hate Iran.

So close to home, these jihadists “pose a direct threat” to states that are members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which does not include Iraq, said Theorore Karasik, director of research and consultancy at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis in Dubai.

Already, ISIS backers exist in Saudi Arabia, Karasik said. Graffiti in support of the group has appeared on walls there and its fliers are in the streets, Karasik said. The group’s relationship to al-Qaeda, particularly al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen, is additionally threatening.

“That puts the kingdom of Saudi Arabia in a vice grip on two different sides, and that is making the kingdom nervous,” he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/jihadist-expansion-in-iraq-puts-persian-gulf-states-in-a-tight-spot/2014/06/13/e52e90ac-f317-11e3-bf76-
447a5df6411f_story.html
Fitz
ISIS Proposes Truce to Kurdish Peshmerga South of Kirkuk

By RUDAW 16/6/2014
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Kurdish Peshmerga forces moved in to secure the provincial capital and protect the rural population left vulnerable to ISIS attacks. Photo: AFP

TUZ KHURMATU – The Kurdish Peshmerga said on Sunday that a security belt they have created on the southern edges of Tuz Khurmatu has prevented the militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) from bringing their fight to the Kurdish areas.

A Peshmerga officer in the area also told Rudaw that the ISIS have contacted them by courier, saying, “If you don't attack us, we would not attack you.”

Currently, the last Peshmerga checkpoint is on the lower Zab River that stretches to the town of Dubis near the city of Kirkuk in the north.

According to information provided by the Peshmerga forces, the ISIS checkpoint is only half a kilometer away from the Kurdish forces and that via taxi drivers on the road, the militants have asked for reassurance that they will not be attacked from the north.

Rudaw correspondent in Kirkuk, Hunar Ahmed says that many families have fled the southern areas of the province to Kirkuk, fearing retaliation by the Iraqi army.

Some families said that their areas are already under shelling from the Iraqi forces.

As the ISIS advanced through Iraq’s Sunni areas from Mosul last week, government troops deserted their posts, leading to the fall of the city of Hawija west of Kirkuk.

Kurdish Peshmerga forces moved in to secure the provincial capital and protect the rural population left vulnerable to ISIS attacks.

According to local officials, many wounded civilians from Hawija and other ISIS-controlled areas have bee transported to Kirkuk hospitals.

Some victims told Rudaw that hospitals in Hawija are in “terrible condition” and that there is the fear of Iraqi army bombardment.

Our correspondent says that the Peshmerga and the Islamic militants engage in occasional clashes, but that the fighting remains sporadic and at a distance due to the heavy Peshmerga presence and security belt they have formed.
President Camacho

Nope Angocachi you're wrong, there is a widely reported presence for former Saddam forces involved in these operations, I don't think all the reports can be erroneous.

Izzat Ibrahim al Duri (Irish Power)

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